The most successful businesses are those with confidence in their ability to store, access and use data effectively. Rather than focusing on the nuts and bolts of storage, this view point looks at the data it holds and more importantly, what can be done with it.

This review looks at why small businesses need to stop being complacent about their networks and at what they can do to maintain their competitive edge as they follow the big boys down the route of increasing collaboration and other bandwidth-hungry applications likely to impact on network performance and availability.

Tech firms bow to government pressure to block child pornography on the internet as summit looms

Google will block more than 100,000 unique search terms that could lead to the discovery of child abuse images. The move follows government calls made earlier this year for search engines and internet service providers (ISPs) to do more to prevent access to illegal material.

Microsoft is also preparing to announce its own efforts, as it attends a summit at Downing Street on Monday, along with Google and other web firms and ISPs.

"While no algorithm is perfect – and Google cannot prevent paedophiles adding new images to the web – these changes have cleaned up the results for over 100,000 queries that might be related to the sexual abuse of kids," he said.

Further to this, Schmidt said Google would send engineers to the UK's Internet Watch Foundation and the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, as well as funding internships for the organisations.

YouTube engineers have also been working on the problem, according to Schmidt, developing algorithms that can detect child abuse in videos. He said Google hoped to share the technology with other internet video providers in the new year.

The move was welcomed by prime minister David Cameron, who made calls for such action back in July, calling it "significant progress". Cameron had given search providers and ISPs an October deadline to make changes.

Cameron said: "At the time, Google and Microsoft – who cover 95 per cent of the market – said blocking search results couldn't be done, that it shouldn't be done. I did not accept that then and I do not accept that now."

He warned that while Google and Microsoft's efforts were welcome, if they failed to act strongly enough, he would have to take legislative action. "If the search engines are unable to deliver on their commitment to prevent child abuse material being returned from search terms used by paedophiles, I will bring forward legislation that will ensure it happens," he said.

"If you scratch the surface, it also evidences the fact that nearly everything was already in place," he said. "Some of these new tactics will help divert inadvertent access and perhaps delay a novice paedophile, but much of the hype in real terms will mean very little."

Despite the apparent increase in action from search providers, the problem of the so-called "dark web" remains, with ISPs the only gatekeepers between users and illegal abuse content. A taskforce led by Tech City boss and ex-Google and Facebook chief Joanna Shields will "explore what more can be done" to reduce its threat.

In addition to efforts from Google and Microsoft, the Internet Watch Foundation has been given a £1.5m funding boost in order to hire more skilled analysts to seek out child abuse sites.